Review – One Day

Man and woman, by design, aren’t meant to be friends. I’m pretty sure in caveman times, men and women weren’t sitting around a campfire talking about their emotions and avoiding any sexual tension. I can guarantee at some point in a healthy friendship between two members of the opposite sex, one of them (probably the man) has pictured the other naked. The line between friends and lovers is blurred in ‘One Day’.

Dexter (Jim Sturges) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) meet for the first time on the night of their university graduation. From that point, we see a day of their lives, every year on the anniversary of their first encounter. Over the years they develop a close relationship that drifts between friendship and romance.

The problem with ‘One Day’ is the two leads have no chemistry. Sturges and Hathaway would have fared better playing brother and sister. The relationship has no spark, which gives the film zero weight because the plot is reliant on the emotional journey the characters go on with each other.

To make matters worse, Dexter and Emma are written as very unlikeable characters. They treat each other and the people around them terribly, and it doesn’t make any sense why they would waste so much time pursuing each other.

The supporting cast stands out, with good performances from Rafe Spall as a wannabe comedian, and Patricia Clarkson pairs with Ken Stott to play Dexter’s lovely parents.

The pacing of ‘One Day’ is slow and the romance is like slowly ripping off a Band-Aid. Towards the end, there are a few emotional punches, but it’s too late to have any real impact. The finale tries to milk it for all it’s worth, but falls into the trap of having more endings than ‘Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’.

The cold hard truth is that ‘One Day’ will only be remembered for Hathaway’s terrible English accent – which drifts between Scottish, Irish and Elvish. ‘One Day’ was adapted from a book that fans have hailed as far superior. Hurdle the film and head to your local bookstore instead.